[Yabbut]

Wife’s new crosstrek has a very annoying couple of spots in the headlights.

There's a YouTube video on the MikesCarInfo channel, posted Sep 6th 2023, that explains the headlamp pattern, starting just after 9 minutes in. When the car is at highway speed, those dark spots in the low beam pattern come together to align with the lane to the left of the car's current lane.

On a 2-lane road, those darker divots make it less likely for the brightest part of the pattern to shine in an oncoming driver's eyes (due to a small dip or bump in the road). The low beam pattern has such a sharp cutoff that if the bright part of the beam bounces into an oncoming driver's eyes, it will look like you're flashing high beams at them.

Yeah, the dark spots look weird, but they're there for a good reason.

 

[Yabbut]

But a "hole" in the beam indeed looks weird AF. Even it it becomes a little cutoff "dip" further down the road where light rays converge. Forester owners, which seem to have the same projector assembly, have been complaining about it as well :
2022+ - Headlight Pattern / projector beam cutoff? (merged thread) ('19+)

PS: @Yabbut : Giving a name and a date, especially when YouTube only writes "posted x months ago" ... was the most user unfriendly way to provide a link to a video

That hole is pretty weird. I haven't noticed it on my '24, and I'm going to try my best not to

@Bluefoton : Guilty as charged on the inconvenient reference. I'm new to the forum and trying not to be too cavalier about posting links to external videos, but I'll err on the side of helpfulness in the future

 

[Yabbut]

After another month of headlight use with my '24, I'm happy with the light distribution and the original adjustment on my car. I see the dark spots, but they don't bother me at all, even during SRH movement.

With that said, I can understand how some people would be unhappy with the headlight throw when the road ahead curves significantly upward. There is so little light above the cutoff directly ahead of the car that I can see how people could feel that the road isn't illuminated far enough ahead of the car.

The auto high beams are effective on my car, and I use them pretty liberally on the rural highways I usually drive, so I haven't felt that driving-into-darkness feeling that I might get if I left the low beams on while approaching a dark upward vertical curve.